1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an apparatus for presenting electronic media content, and more particularly, to an apparatus for receiving and presenting electronic media content from a portable electronic storage device that is detachably connected to the apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Large digital files containing electronic media content, such as music, movies, video clips, e-books, audio books, and other audio or visual content, are readily available on the Internet. Indeed, the increasing availability of high-speed Internet access over the past decade has led to the widespread popularity of downloading electronic media content over the Internet.
Instead of purchasing such content on conventionally factory-recorded compact discs (CD's), audio tapes, digital video disks (DVD's), video tapes, and the like, individuals are able to obtain the same content immediately and conveniently wherever and whenever Internet access is available.
Downloaded content can be stored on a variety of electronic storage devices. Such storage devices include personal computer hard drives, networked storage, writable CD's or DVD's, digital audio tapes, or other devices capable of holding large amounts of digital data. Recent advances in storage technology have also resulted in increases in storage capacities as well as reductions in size and weight of storage devices. These new advances make large amounts of content readily portable. In particular, it has been especially popular to store digital music files on portable personal audio devices, such as MP3 players, made especially to play digital music. The portability of these personal audio devices permits individuals to enjoy music wherever they go.
In addition to the convenience of downloading digital content, individuals enjoy the flexibility of being able to create customizable playlists that contain only the content that the individuals prefer. Moreover, due to the high capacity of many electronic storage devices, a large amount of content and many such playlists can be saved on a single storage device. In addition, particular storage devices, such as personal audio devices, offer repeated read-write capability, and as such, permit repeated deletion of saved content and creation of new playlists with new content.